Brick: Lakeside’s Cornerstone, Part 6 Brick Designs

Bóveda Brick Designs
Masons at Lake Chapala use six designs when laying ceiling bóveda. Recently a crew of masons arranged bricks into these designs to give you a clearer view of the patterns and a way to learn the names of the patterns.

  Catalana                                           Cuña

The Original designs

Catalana and Cuña were the only bóveda designs used in central Mexico until about 40 years ago. Catalana is named for the people in a region of Spain and Cuña is the name of the wedges driven in between the bricks to fill the spaces.

  Petatillo Esquinada                              Petatillo Escuadro

The Petatillos

The two petatillos reflect the herringbone designs on the opposite sides of petate, (woven rush mat). You've seen petate in the ceiling structure of other homes, and for sale along the highway here at Lakeside. It serves poor Mexicans in every phase of daily life—from covering dirt floors to being the surface on which babies are born and often the wrapping for bodies before burial. Petatillo Esquinada is based on diagonal corners while Petatillo Escuadro is more squared off.

 Tesón                                                    Tesón y Catalana

 The Tough Designs

Tesón translates as tenacity, firmness or inflexibility in English—and those are good descriptions for a ceiling or roof. The remaining design combines the lengthwise rows of Catalan and crosswise flat bricks of Tesón.

Thanks to the maestros of Ajijic’s The Little Company and Contractor Juan Gilberto Higuera Rivera for their help with this series of articles. They taught me the names of these designs so I can share the information with the readers.